Within days all cities were reporting that crime was largely a thing of the past. It was deemed that if you were causing a distraction from the defense of Earth you did not deserve to live on it. Thousands had quickly found out how serious the situation was.
We sat quietly at the rally point watching a countdown timer on our consoles. The ticking readout displayed 30 minutes, then 20 then 10. When the counter reached zero the 125 Defenders in my group let loose the 2,000 Drillers in our care. At the same moment on the backside of Earth another 2,000 Drillers were released. The defense of Earth had begun.
As the first reports of coil gun fire began to display on my console Bigg came on air with a loud comment. Another 3,000 Drillers had been released from the planet's surface!
We had been instructed to give the Drillers a five minute head start before pushing our throttles to full. The hour of our destiny was upon us. The battle computers on the ground were busily dividing up the fighters for each of the Defender squads. Our squad was given a group of eight to contend with.
As we came around the back side of the Moon the alien carrier came into view on our consoles. The carrier looked like a long dark branch with a huge swarm of mad bees in a fog surrounding it. The swarm began to grow and pulsate as the Drillers interacted with the alien fighters. Small explosions could be seen as if like fireflies in a dark night sky.
The explosions continued as we quickly approached. The alien fighters were within range of four of our heavy space based coil guns. Every three seconds a new set of tungsten pellets were propelled to extraordinary speeds. Every few seconds an alien fighter gave out a bright flash and then disintegrated.
Before we were able to fire a shot more than 30 alien fighters had been eliminated. A feeling of hope began to build in my heart. Then just as quickly as it seemed we were gaining an advantage the aliens changed tactics. Swarms of 64 fighters attacked and quickly overwhelmed all four heavy coil guns.
Their next tactic was the most unnerving. Each of the swarms then turned towards the planet surface. Boston was the first city to be attacked. We had 25 heavy coil guns positioned in the northeast where at least five would cover any city at once. The five guns went into service immediately.
The fighters overwhelming tactic had knocked out three of Boston's guns before we made it into the fray. A dozen fighters had been taken out in the process but the remaining 52 began to do their damage. First the city center was shredded. Skyscrapers fell. Bridges were knocked out. Highways and the autos on them crushed. The destruction slowly circled outwards as the Drillers continued to chase the rampaging fighters.
Our squad had been assigned to the fighters that were now ravaging Atlanta. A rage burned inside me as I took our Defender within a hundred meters of the first fighter we encountered. Whip fired the coil guns and our foe broke in half before bursting into a ball of flames. We quickly targeted another and another as we flew through the alien horde.
Our second reactor was dedicated entirely to our shield and Bigg was hard at work countering any fighter gravity wave that came our way. The battle over Atlanta raged for 15 minutes before half of the alien fighters had been eliminated. Dobbins Air Force base on the north side of town had provided extra heavy coil gun cover with four additional units.
Those guns had been taken out along with four of the six protecting the metro area only minutes later. The Air Force base and the aircraft factories located there were in ruins. As the remaining fighters continued to do their damage a flashing red indicator on my console told me of the fate of A104 along with 12 other Defenders assigned to our group.
There were nine Defenders still engaged with 26 of the enemy over Atlanta. The Drillers continued on their rampage. The alien fighters continued to obliterate targets on the ground.
Four times our active skin had hit more than 80% saturation. I was putting us in harms way in an effort to provide my wing-man with cover. The war of attrition was not going our way as our numbers had soon dropped to four. The alien fighters numbered 18 while 47 Drillers continued to chase them about.
Untold millions had perished on the ground in Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles and many other cities and strategic targets around the globe. Our strategy of firing the nukes at the alien carrier had failed. The gravity weapon on-board the large ship was far superior to that of the fighters. No missile had come within 200 kilometers.
A dozen Defenders had been lost attacking the carrier before the order went out for those remaining to retreat and help with the city defense. Mankind was taking it hard on the chin... and in the gut. If something didn't change soon the aliens would have control of the skies. That would mean certain doom.
The remaining 18 fighters over Atlanta dove and pummeled ground targets and then swooped back after the remaining Defenders. The chaos of battle was almost overwhelming. We managed to take out another four fighters before the last of our ground based weapons was eliminated. The aliens had taken out one more of our Defenders.
I ran cover and came in close on our attacks as we took out two more alien fighters. Just as we had adapted our tactics the aliens changed theirs. The dozen fighters all turned on us at once. The coordinated attack took out our third remaining Defender. It was now just us and the girls in A277.
We shot straight skyward in an attempt to lure the fighters from the city. They feinted a follow and then turned quickly back to their destruction.
With another sweeping pass we took out another fighter. Then, A277 took a hard hit knocking out four of their rings and their active skin. A final salvo from their guns took out one more fighter before they turned to flee. My girls were out of the fight leaving us to defend against the ten remaining alien fighters. Even with the extra power of our second reactor we would not last long.
When six of the fighters maneuvered towards me I had to push full on the throttle to squeeze out of their trap. Another hard hit took our shield to 92% saturation. In my slow turning Defender with no other help I was out of moves. The aliens were becoming skilled at evading my hit and run attempts. They continued to ravage the suburbs of Atlanta and all who had sought shelter there.
When the darkest moment of dread was upon us our consoles lit up with green blips. In a last ditch effort the Tacticians had launched our conventional fighter aircraft. They were of no match for the alien fighters but they brought a distraction that allowed my crew to operate. As the brave airmen of the USAF, USMC and USN sacrificed their lives over Altanta in a gesture of bravery that I will never forget, we began to eliminate the remaining enemy fighters one by one.
When the clock struck noon the battle for Atlanta was over. More than 8 million souls had been lost below us. Our orders quickly came in to divert to Chicago to continue the fight. There would be no rest for the weary.
I pushed the throttle full and within five minutes we were doing battle with another 16 alien fighters. Only three other Defenders remained. We made our first pass and eliminated two fighters. On the next sweep we took out two more. The remaining dozen then suddenly turned and headed back skyward towards their carrier.
We continued to make runs as they retreated. One more fighter fell before we got pinched between two gravity weapons. Our shields went to 102%.
We lost three of our BHD rings with the remaining two taking damage. The safety fuse in our second reactor blew filling our cabin with smoke and eliminating our shields and active skin.
I cut hard away from the fighters and almost blacked out from the sudden affects of inertia. I looked for an immediate place to land. There were plenty as most of Chicago had been flattened.
We set down hard in the parking lot of what had once been a thriving community grocery store. The back hatch opened and the smoke from the blown circuits boiled out. We had made it out alive, but not before the city of big shoulders and many others lay largely in ruin. Fire raged in every direction. Mrs. O'leary's cow had done nothing compared to the devastation that lay all around us.
I attempted to contact Battle Comma
nd at Regents Field but got no response. I tried repeatedly to raise Paige but the silence was the same. I wondered if any other Defenders had survived other than the three we had come to assist.
They had been redirected to another destination as soon as the alien fighters retreated. The comm channels were jammed with individual pilot chatter. Command had broken down. I questioned the team and the only conclusion they could draw was that Regents Field may have been taken out... along with the chamber.
My heart sank as I thought of the possibility of Paige's death. I had gone into battle feeling that at least she would be secure in the underground rock fortress. Perhaps I was wrong.
Once the smoke cleared Pop got to work on making our craft flight-worthy. The blown circuits for the reactor were bypassed and the two somewhat functioning BHD rings inspected. It would be risky, but we could fly. The immediate choice was to go back to Regents Field. When we lifted off I pushed what throttle we had to full.
We passed over Denver on our way back to the Nevada desert. Smoke plumes billowed high, placing a dramatic haze over the adjacent Rockies. On final approach to Regents Field it was as we had guessed... complete devastation. The hangars had been flattened. The administration buildings flattened. Anything that had once been sitting on the tarmac had seen the same fate.
We landed beside our hangar. There were no people in sight... only flattened piles of debris. The elevators and the tunnel that headed off to who knows where were buried under the rubble. I again tried all comm channels in an attempt to raise Battle Command and the chamber. Again there was nothing but silence.
The chaotic pilot chatter had died down. The remaining alien fighters had retreated to the safety of their carrier. Whip got on her console and began to coordinate with the other pilots to return to Regents Field.
Even if there was nothing left we needed a rally point and Regents Field was as good as any. Within half an hour the 22 other remaining Defenders joined us on the tarmac. Three were heavily damaged.
One of the crews had followed the retreating fighters back to their carrier. They had 76 fully functioning craft and 36 that appeared damaged. Their robotic assistants were no doubt busily at work making repairs. We had 88 crewman left to do battle with this titanic vessel and its 100 or so fighters that remained. It was impossible odds.
We had no weapons except for our coil guns. We had no command coordination for an attack. We each wondered just how long it would take before the aliens mounted another assault.
After evaluation, two of the damaged Defenders were deemed unfit to do battle. The decision was made to scrap them for spare parts. The design of the Defenders was such that they were extremely simplistic and modular. Parts could easily be removed and fitted to another craft with the small set of tools that each Defender carried.
Pop got to work on stripping the circuits for our second reactor while Bigg and Whip changed out BHD rings. Within an hour Defender A55 was once again battle ready.
But, we still had no plan. No one in command. Arguments were beginning to break out over heated discussions of what we would do next. At that moment I made a decision. I stepped into the small crowd of Defender crewman and let it be known that I was now in charge.
I split the crewmen into groups for quiet discussion. Two groups of each type of crewman were quickly organized. I gave direction to discuss any and all possible options. No arguments. No raised voices. I gave a speech about how everything was still on the line. Billions of citizens were still counting on our ability to defend. Our families, friends and fellow countrymen needed our help now more than ever.
If we were to fail, everything would be lost. It was the talk everyone needed to hear. Soon afterward the groups were hashing out possible scenarios of the options before us. As the discussions proceeded Pop came to me with an idea. He could mount a third reactor in our Defender. We could also double up on the BHD rings.
He thought it might give us a shot at punching through the much stronger gravity wave being put out by the carrier. If we could take out the carrier we had a much better shot at the war of attrition General Buck had contemplated.
I then asked Whip to calculate a speed at which our active skin could handle hitting the carrier head on. I asked what if we made our Defender into a Driller of sorts. Whip typed feverishly at her console and within minutes came back with the answer. It might be possible. It was not the answer I wanted to hear, but it looked like we were out of options.
I then made the command decision. Defender A55, with three reactors and ten BHD rings, would fly outward from the planet, turn, and then accelerate back towards the carrier at more than light speed. We would pass Jupiter and then turn behind its cover. If we reached light speed before coming from behind the planet we could fly right into the alien carrier before they saw us coming.
It was a Kamikaze run. And, it was our only hope. Before I had a chance to finalize the plan the pilot of A224 scrambled to her Defender. We all watched in wonder as the door to the craft closed and the active skin powered up.
With only the pilot on-board Defender A224 lifted off and headed straight up. Word from the pilot soon came over the comm. She was putting my plan into action. If she was unable to make it through upon impact then so be it. She could at least do damage.
I tried to convince her that it was suicide without the extra shielding provided by our triple reactors but she did not care. Her Defensive specialist came over with the reason why. Her husband and children had been in Boston when the battle began. She had nothing to go home to. She reasoned that perhaps her sacrifice could show us if the plan would work without sacrificing those who had something to live for.
Pop then reminded me of just how long it would take for her to enact her plan. It would be at least six hours before she was able to achieve light speed. So, six hours out and six hours back.
With our added rings we could do the trip in its entirety before she turned her ship around. I then ordered my crew to stand down. They were off duty. I would be flying alone. There was no sense in all of us dying if the attempt was a failure. But, my crew would have none of it. They each pushed past me and boarded A55. I could not have been prouder.
I then barked the order for a new commander of the group to step up. Three crewmen did so. I selected the eldest among them with the hope that they would be the most experienced. I gave the command over and then had a final word for the rest. I told them that if this failed it would fall to them to do their best. To fight for the Earth and all who were on it.
As I turned back to board the Defender several crewmen shouted out in support. I sat in my chair and connected in as the door closed on the cheers behind us. We lifted off and immediately went to full throttle. The readouts on my holo-gauges moved much faster than before. We programmed in the flight plan and seconds later were greeted with our friendly familiar countdown timer.
As we sped away from the planet the monitors gave us our first look at the rallying alien craft. Half were in flight, buzzing about the carriers protected space while the rest remained docked. We sped outward in a wide arc, ever accelerating. Instead of a straight trip out and back it was determined that a giant loop would allow us to continue to build speed all the way to our target.
The counter ticked away from two hours twelve minutes. Pop worked feverishly at his console while we accelerated towards our destiny. I asked what he was planning, but only received silence. I looked at the others whose responses were shrugs.
With just over an hour remaining Pop sat back in his chair. He apologized for the silence and told us of his efforts. He had reprogrammed the power split to instantly divert to the active skin if it was reaching its limit or to divert excess from the active skin to the BHD if available.
He also sent a new course to my console. He reasoned that if we were going to hit this thing we wanted to do it endwise. Fly in one end and out the other to inflict the maximum possible damage.
The new course for the attack was laid in and the timer r
ecalculated to add the needed extra four seconds. Whip then presented an idea of her own. We could fire all four coil guns in a spread pattern just before we entered the carrier. She was not even sure what would happen when fired at that speed, but she quipped that if the physics held, the tungsten pellets would do major damage of their own.
We all sat back in our chairs as the timer ticked down to 30 minutes, then ten and finally three. As the counter continued to run I thought about Paige. Was she alive? Injured? Had she perished along with so many others? And what of all the destruction? Would we be able to recover and rearm before the bulk of the alien fleet arrived?
My head was spinning as the final seconds ticked away. In a flash the tiny Earth grew large and then small again. My console showed that the coil guns had indeed fired. We had passed completely through the eight kilometer long ship in 26 millionths of a second. I checked the readouts and the shields had hit 96%.
I looked at the high speed video feed from our sensors, but the frame rate was not fast enough to capture any impact. We had a blurred image on approach but the image on regress was too distant to tell if anything was there.
I then flipped the ships direction and had Pop divert all available power towards the BHD. It would be another two hours before we would be back within range of our sensors.
The wait was agonizing. Had we missed the target altogether? If so, then why did the shields spike momentarily to 96%? And what of our coil gun rounds? The ride back was again silent and my thoughts once again turned towards Paige. For nearly two hours I sat contemplating what I would do if she had not survived.
I had lived my whole life bouncing about from relationship to relationship before meeting her. She was everything I had ever wanted and more than I had ever dreamed of finding. Would life be worth living afterward, knowing what had been taken from me? I decided the answer was yes. David Brenner had thought so. The Earth was worth defending if only for the purpose of exacting revenge on our alien attackers.
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